Historical Background - SS

THE SS - HITLER'S INSTRUMENT OF TERROR

Claus von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators acted for two primary reasons.  Strategically, the war was lost and millions of Germans were going to die if they did not do something.  Morally, many, especially Claus felt that as German officers they had an obligation to show the world not all agreed with the Third Reich that terrorized not only the world but many of its own citizens.  The instrument of that terror was the SS.

The SS was mainly a large bureaucratic organization, and along with such a structure came the typical infighting, turf wars and politicking.  As such, the SS was not the monolithic force that some have made it out to be.  As the SS grew, the “original elite” bodyguard selected for their racial purity morphed into a complex organization which took on many men from different backgrounds – laborers, lower middle class and upper class citizens, those of “noble” birth, and financiers.  It is a telling statistic that by the start of World War II, only about 10% of the original “elite” remained in service.  But still, the terror they invoked by their black uniforms with the Death’s Head insignia cannot be taken lightly.  The SS had spread its tentacles into many areas of German life.  It had taken over the equivalent role of the FBI, the CIA, the police, and even the army (Waffen-SS).  It established and ran the concentration camps where millions were murdered.  And it answered only to Hitler as Fuhrer and Himmler as Reichsfuhrer.  Its terror was in its mere existence – the knowledge that “they” were out there and they might be listening.

In the early days of the Nazi party, Hitler had relied on Ernst Roehm and his band of Sturmabteilung (SA) to stir up trouble so the party could win the support of the people.  Intimidation, smashing windows and storefronts, raiding homes, and other violent means were used.  In March 1923, long before the Nazis came to power, Hitler recognized the need for a group of men to provide him protection.  He recruited his new bodyguard out of the SA.  These men were known as the Stabswache (Headquarters Guard).  Two months later, when one of the SA Commanders recalled his men, the Stabswache was disbanded and Hitler created a new company of men called Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler (Assault Squad).  These members were mostly laborers from lower middle or working class families in Munich.  Then came the Beer Hall Putsch and the temporary disbanding of the party, the outlawing of the SA and the imprisonment of Adolf Hitler.

In December 1924, having served his time, Hitler returned to reconstitute the Nazi party.  In April of the next year, he formed the Schutzstaffel (SS). Initially numbering eight men from the old Assault Squad and the Headquarters Guard, the SS quickly became a force of its own, setting up recruiting in other cities.  Many former SA members became SS.  These were the elite of the elite.  Strict rules guided their actions.  In fact, they were even prohibited from carrying weapons.  They were well trained and well disciplined and they would grow as the Nazi power grew.  As a national organization, they were responsible for protecting all high party officials.  Until 1929, the SS numbered only 280 men.  On January 6 of the same year, Hitler appointed Himmler head of the SS.  As the power and responsibilities of the organization grew, there was a natural tendency toward conflict with the SA.  For a time, whenever the SS and SA were together, the SA commander would be in charge of the SS.  But as the struggle for power continued between the two groups, in late 1930 Hitler made the SS independent of the SA.  By 1932, the SS numbered 52,000.  By the end of 1933, it had 209,000 men.  In 1931, the SD (security service) was formed and in December 1940 the Waffen-SS (armed SS) was formed to fight alongside the army.

The Gestapo had been created out of the Prussian Secret Police and in April 1934 was transferred to the authority of the SS.  The name originated from its leader Hermann Goerring, who after having received a suggestion to name his new command Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police), shortened it to Gestapo.  The organization played a critical role in the Night of the Long Knives when the SA leaders along with other opponents of Hitler were eliminated.  As a reward, they were made an independent body answerable only to Heinrich Himmler as Reichsfuhrer and Hitler as Fuhrer.

The Gestapo’s role was to combat “all tendencies dangerous to the state.”  Its authority included the ability to investigate treason, espionage and sabotage as well as all threats to the Nazi Party and to Germany.  They could issue preventative arrest warrants and as such could consign any German to a concentration camp for any period of time.  Between 1935 and 1936, 7000 so called “Marxists” were interned.

Although it is true that the Gestapo did investigate Germans who posed a threat to Hitler, most of their “work” against ordinary Germans came in the form of denunciations from other German citizens.  Most of these resulted in little or no punishment.  In these cases, the Gestapo was a reactive organization, often just trying to settle disputes between neighbors and kin.  There were of course exceptions, but the main targets of Gestapo terror were Jews, Communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Socialists, homosexuals, clergymen, and habitual criminals.

In fact, in these matters the Gestapo was quite proactive.  Between 1939 and 1941 almost all traces of the Communist party were destroyed.   The Gestapo would often open mail or tap telephones using an engineer to replace a “defective device.”  Some Communists were brought in and threatened, forced into becoming double agents.

Coercion and violence were used often.  In fact torture was considered standard policy by June 1937.  The Gestapo agreed to restrict torture only in very limited ways.  A doctor was to be present after more then ten blows.  Permission had to be granted from Gestapo headquarters but since permission could be obtained retroactively, effectively there was no limit to what the Gestapo could do.

Bruno Streckenbach, the chief of the Hamburg Gestapo struck a deal with the courts.  Those who had “committed suicide” under his watch after he had smashed their kidneys were cremated, thus providing no evidence of malfeasance.  The Gestapo preferred its Columbia House in Berlin where they routinely tortured prisoners.   One story from a Social Democrat reveals the methods and the madness.  At seven one morning, Gestapo officers came to his house, did a haphazard search then took the man to Gestapo headquarters.  Moved to Columbia House at five in the evening after talk of signing a confession, he was strip-searched by SS men then was allowed to shower.  In the shower, he was beaten by more SS men while he was being interrogated.  He was given a meal then sent back to Gestapo headquarters for three or four days before being transferred back to Columbia House where he was beaten again.  Eventually he was transferred to Moabit prison and since there was insufficient evidence against him, he was returned to Gestapo headquarters then again to Columbia House, beaten again then locked in a dark cell with no bed. 

As for the clergy, they did not escape the reach of the SS either, especially the Catholic Church.  When the Nazis took over, they argued for a less divisive religious atmosphere in Germany.  The Calvinists and Lutherans were united under the German Evangelical Church and its membership was comprised of the majority of the German populace.  The German Evangelical Church was also perfectly suited for Nazi designs because the church was conservative and German while the Catholic Church in Germany professed allegiance to Rome.  The Nazis undertook to Nazify the Evangelical church by creating a pressure group known as the German Christians.  By summer 1933, many pastors were giving sermons in SA or SS uniforms.  Some pastors were jailed for speaking out against the new regime.  Others were barred from preaching.  By 1937, over 700 Protestant pastors were in jail, and one of the leading opponents of the Nazification of the church, Martin Niemoller, was arrested.  He was acquitted of all charges but found the Gestapo waiting for him when he was freed in 1938 and was put in solitary confinement at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. 

The Catholic Church boasted 20 million members in Germany, about one third of the population.  In 1936, Richard Heydrich, the head of the Gestapo classified the Catholic Church along with Jews as the two main threats to Nazism.  On July 20, 1933, all Catholic newspapers were ordered to remove the word, “Catholic” from their moniker.  In Bavaria, on September 19, 1933, Heinrich Himmler banned Catholic church activities save for choir rehearsals, youth groups and charitable events.  German Catholic Cardinals felt their best course of action was to openly align themselves with the Reich.  This they did, yet still the Gestapo moved against them.  By 1933, the Secret State Police had begun surveillance of Catholics in Germany.  During the Night of the Long Knives, the Gestapo murdered Erich Klausener, the General Secretary of Catholic Action as well as Adalbert Probst, the National Director of the Catholic Youth Sports Association.  Also killed that night was Fritz Gerlich, the editor of the Catholic weekly newspaper, The Strait Way.  By 1935, tougher measures were undertaken by the Gestapo.  They limited public meetings, censored the remaining Catholic newspapers, even banning certain issues and forcing them to accept Nazis in editorial positions.  The Nazis also attempted to sway younger people to joining the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls but priests and other Catholics resisted.  By 1936, open hostility existed between the Nazis and the Catholic Church and Himmler and the SS increased the pressure.  Secret agents were planted in Church organizations.  Priests were harassed by the police.  By 1938, most Catholic youth groups had been banned.  In 1935 and 1936 a campaign against the Catholic hierarchy included the arrest and conviction of monks and priests accused of molesting children, the accusations often fabricated.  By April 1937, supposedly more than a thousand of these men were awaiting trial.  The effect of these “trials” was to reduce the number of children attending Catholic schools and by the outbreak of war, all religious schools had been converted to community schools and all private schools run by the Church had been shut down or nationalized.  In some areas within Germany, it was the Gestapo which had driven the Catholic Church out of public life. 

The SS also knew how to spread fear even when there was not all that much to fear.  One tactic was to broadcast Gestapo activities on the radio.  When they went on raids against political or criminal elements they would broadcast the roar of their engines to make it seem that a large crackdown was taking place.  In addition, the Nazis made sure the public was aware of the laws concerning the powers of the Gestapo.  The effect was to create an atmosphere of fear and to intimidate the public.

By the outbreak of war in 1939, thousands were arrested as potential enemies of the state.  At least 2 million individual cards and files had been created since 1935.  At that time, orders were issued to arrest anyone who questioned the justification for the war. Later in September, a clarification was given to local police that serious offenses should be turned over to the Gestapo for investigation.

The meaning of “protective custody” was clarified as well.  Either those arrested were to be released in ten days or put under such custody.  That decision was reserved for Gestapo headquarters.  On October 4, the ten days were extended to twenty-one.  Then a few weeks later, a directive was issued that all those in protective custody would remain so throughout the war.  Protective custody was used by the Gestapo to round up all sorts of undesirables – from left-wing “enemies of the state” to Jehovah’s Witnesses to homosexuals to clergy to all manner of those who were considered a threat to the Nazi regime.

By 1936, the Gestapo had become effectively police, judge, jury and executioner.  They were not above the law; they were the law.  With the system of denunciation in place and the knowledge that in all corners of Germany, the Gestapo was watching (even if it were only through the eyes of one’s neighbor), ordinary Germans could live their lives, but they always had to be careful.  What they said, whether it be anti-Nazi or anti-war, and what they did, whether it be sexual “deviance” or hoarding goods could land them in Gestapo hands.  And once in Gestapo hands, although many ordinary Germans never saw any punishment, there were those that did, and Gestapo punishments, as above, were notoriously ruthless and brutal.

One family of Germans experienced first hand what it was like to resist the Nazi regime:  the Scholl family.  The most famous, Sophie was born in 1921.  At the time, her father was Mayor of Forchtenberg am Kocher.  In 1937, she along with her sister and brother Hans were detained by the Gestapo for eight days.  In 1942 her father was arrested for commenting that “Hitler was the biggest scourge with which God had ever punished humankind, and if he didn’t end the war soon the Russians would be sitting in Berlin inside a few years.”  An employee had told the local Gestapo office and he was tried and sentenced to four months in prison.  In 1942, Sophie and Hans, while attending the University of Munich were active in a group called the “White Rose.”  The White Rose was a movement of students protesting the war.  In January 1943, they printed leaflets calling for all Germans to “support the resistance movement” and for “freedom of speech, freedom of religion, protection of the individual citizen from the arbitrary action of criminal dictator-states.”  On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie brought a suitcase full of leaflets to the university to distribute.  Seeing later that there were still some left, Sophie went up and threw the rest out the window.  She was seen by a custodian and the police were called.  Along with Hans and another member of the White Rose, Christoph Probst, she was taken to Gestapo headquarters.  On February 23, the three youngsters were tried in the “People’s Court,” later a vehicle for the sentencing of the conspirators.  All three were executed by guillotine the same day.  Sophie was twenty-one years old.  Hans was twenty-four.  Probst was twenty-three.  They were all German.

What existed in Nazi Germany then was no less than a total police state – based partly on mythology and partly on reality.  A police state where fear was the most powerful weapon.  Fear of the SS.  And fear of the Gestapo.